Jason Isbell & The 400 Unit

Reunions

The fact these songs seem so telling in a strange and difficult time has a bit to do with coincidence, but more important is the excellence of Isbell's songwriting.

Lyrically, Isbell is at the top of his game.

Seven albums on, Isbell’s achieved a rarified status, one that indulges a need for creativity as well as contemplation. Reunions reminds us that it’s the rare artist that succeeds at both.

The result is a body of work that often feels indispensable. Isbell is a songwriter’s songwriter, but the songs that result are for all of us.

With a blend of fact and fiction, Isbell has created his own Nebraska and secured his place among the greats of country-rock.

He writes about the ordinary torments of an examined life with real empathy, matching sublime turns of phrase with all the right chords in all the right places, and arrangements that lift up a song and carry it exactly where you might want it to go.

From tight rockers to disappointed country tunes, Reunions hits the spot.

Whether he’s musing insightfully over alcoholism or parenthood, his band are blazing and Isbell takes a tired format and charges it up with passion and perceptiveness. An admirable anomaly.

Overall, Reunions doesn't quite achieve the heights of Southeastern or The Nashville Sound, but that's only because Isbell has set the bar so damn high for himself. This is an excellent album in its own right, and I can't imagine any Isbell fan being disappointed by it.

With its acute portraits of a troubled and tangled life, Reunions is ultimately a story of redemption through fatherhood and self-knowledge, epic soul-country opener What I've Done To Help setting the mood perfectly.

The alt-country singer-songwriter’s new album moves steadily and carefully, lingering on the conflicted emotions of his finely-etched tales and the band’s textured, elegant understatement.

Reunions is a nuanced, probing record that finds Isbell more restless than he’s been since Southeastern, a rich portrait of an artist eternally searching deeper within himself.